


i can't face the night (like i used to before)

by MaliciousVegetarian



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Infant Death, Mpreg, Post Mpreg, Stillbirth, Trans Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Transmasc Pregnancy, yes beta we live like renfri should have
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: In the aftermath of the loss of his infant daughters, Geralt and Ciri find ways to cope with their grief together.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #03





	i can't face the night (like i used to before)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: stillbirth and infant death, mpreg, transmasc pregnancy
> 
> The pregnancy and birth are only alluded to, but they're still there, so keep yourself safe! If you are a Quick Fic participant, please please feel free to skip this one. I wrote it knowing not everyone would read it, and I take no offense at you doing so.

Madlen dies as winter gives way to spring, and it’s a bitter time. Geralt has always heard of children dying in winter, wasting away in the cold months, and some foolish part of him had thought that if she could make it to spring they would be alright. Even as she worsened, he held onto that hope. 

But she still dies. He’s holding her when she goes, her little head nestled against his shoulder. He rubs her back, whispering the words of the song more than singing, not wanting to break the dreadful silence.

When she’s still and cold, no trace of life left, he hands her to Nenneke. He doesn’t want to think about what happens to her next, although he’ll have to. He feels guilty, because he held Sarlota for a whole day after she was born, but holding Madlen, when he knows what she looks like alive, is different, something he can’t bear.

One of the attendants smiles gently at him as Nenneke leaves the room. He hasn’t learned her name, he’s been so focused on his girls. Ciri reaches over and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back, trying to muster a smile for her. This isn’t easy on her either, but it’s hard to see that through the pain consuming him. It’s strangely similar to how he felt when Sarlota was taken away, the grief bearing down as weight, leaving him heavy and still. He feels pinned by the loss of them.

The last few weeks since the birth feel like a blur. He longs for the physical pain he had felt when he was holding Sarlota, because then his body reflected his soul. He wants to stand up and walk out of the room, but the weight is crushing him, keeping him from moving. He’s not sure he could stand without collapsing.

Ciri looks at him for a moment and then drapes herself over him. Somehow, he manages to lift an arm and throw it over her. He barely registers the attendant leaving.

They stay like that for a long, long time. It’s good to have her next to him, to feel her breathing, to be reminded that he still has one daughter with him. She’s here, and he wants to think he won’t let anything take her, but he’d thought the same thing about Madlen. He’s fairly sure they’re being left alone, but he couldn’t really say.

At some point Nenneke comes in again, alone this time. "Do you think you can sleep?" She asks. "Or do you want something to help you sleep?"

Geralt sighs. Normally he wouldn’t take any kind of sleep aid without a fight, but now he longs for a dark, deep sleep. “Something to help me sleep,” he says.

He doesn’t dream that night, but he wakes up thinking Madlen is crying. He reaches for her, and when his hand hits nothing he remembers. It feels like falling off a cliff all over again.

\--

The next few days are a blur. They bury Madlen the day after her death, in the same grave as Sarlota, where the soil has only just begun to settle before they disturb it again.

Geralt can’t bring himself to look in the grave, to think about what’s happened to his youngest daughter’s body in the weeks since her death. But he helps get Madlen ready - wiping her down one last time, and redressing her. He puts her in the gown he had bought before the birth, which matches the one Sarlota was buried in, and before he hands her over for the final time, he gives Nenneke something to be buried with her.

“Your medallion?” She asks, surprised in a way he’s rarely heard from her. He nods.

‘I’ll get another one next winter.”

She takes it from him, giving him a curious look as she does so. He won’t change his mind, though. He’s thought about this a lot, and if he can’t lay down in the grave next to his daughters, he wants this, the closest thing to a part of his body that’s easily removable, to be with them instead. He knows there are old ones still left at Kaer Morhen, and even if there weren’t, he would still give up this part of him.

The burial is small and solemn. Ciri holds onto Geralt like she thinks he’ll fall over if she doesn’t, and it makes him so sad that she has to support him, when it should be the other way around. But truth be told, he’s not sure he trusts himself to stand.

It’s a cold and rainy morning, but Geralt refuses to wear a cloak. The grave is in the temple cemetery, in a corner dedicated to the babies the followers of Melitele couldn’t save. The markers are mostly simple - names and dates written in cold hard stone. He hates the idea of his daughters’ lives being written out like that, but he wants something there eventually.

After, he’s guided back to his room, where he sits on the bed and cries. Ciri curls up under his arm again and cries with him. He strokes her hair, rocking the both of them back and forth, as if the motion can soothe the grief.

He’s never been one to cry. He used to think his mother leaving drained all the tears from him. However a new, previously unknown well seems to have been tapped because everything sets him off. He hates being in the room where the girls were born and Madlen died, but he can’t bring himself to ask for a different room and sever another connection to them.

\--

The attendant who was there when Madlen died - he’s since learned her name is Nevena - is the one who tells him about the ceremony. She only tells him after he asks, having seen the other attendants decorating the temple.

“We have it every spring,” she says. “To honor all the babies gone too soon. We write their names on ribbons and tie them to the old yew in the courtyard.”

Geralt’s seen the ribbons before, he realizes, on other visits. He never thought to ask what they were for.

“Can I -” he begins to ask, but finds he can;t finish the question, the reality of it sinking in for the millionth time. His girls are gone, and this is all he has to feel close to them. She answers before he can finish.

“Of course you can. It’s in two days.”

\--

The day dawns nicer than the others have been recently - still cold, but not raining. The sky is a bright and bitter blue, and the temple is full of people. For the first time since Madlen’s death, Geralt finds it easier to roll himself out of bed.

He and Ciri dress in finer clothes than they normally wear, which the temple provided for them, since they’d brought so little. The courtyard is bursting, full of women and their partners, as well as a few men like him. There’s a soft hum of people talking, gathering in little groups. It almost seems like people have made friendships over the years, and are finding each other again. Without meaning to, Geralt decides he’ll be here next year as well, as impossible as a year passing seems.

The ribbons are passed out by the attendants, with the names already written on them. Geralt’s daughters’ names are written on yellow and white ones, and he holds them close to his chest for a moment before turning to Ciri. “Do you want to hang them?”

She seems surprised, but nods, taking them from him with care.

Geralt’s not sure how this whole thing will work, but the attendants line them up carefully and efficiently. Then, the first person, a woman with a long dark braid slung over her shoulder, goes up to the yew and ties a blue ribbon to the bottom bow. “Lilli,” she says, and then moves back towards the line. Two young children and a red-headed woman are waiting to embrace her.

The line moves quickly. Most people have some sort of companion, children or partners or friends, but several are clearly alone. The names echo in Geralt’s head. Penelope. Artur. Gregorii. Agata. They seem to go on and on. Some people, like Geralt, have more than one ribbon. A man comes up to the tree with eight, and Geralt’s heart breaks imagining the repeated punch of those losses.

Finally, the line gets to them. Ciri walks up confidently, tying the ribbons to the same small branch, just where the yew’s needles stop. “Madlen,” she says, and Geralt can hear the tears in her voice, “and Sarlota.” After a pause, she adds, “My little sisters.”

She almost runs back to Geralt, and he opens his arms to catch her, holding her close and breathing in the realness of her. Above them, the ribbons flutter in the breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
